Sports of The Times;Long Opening Ceremony Finally Gives the Games to the Athletes

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FINALLY, the Summer Games belong to the athletes after six years of dreaming and last night's opening ceremony, topped by the emotional perfect touch of the legendary Muhammad Ali, slowed by Parkinson's syndrome, lighting the Olympic caldron.

Starting this morning, none too soon, there will be good, honest women's 10-meter air-rifle competition; the first gold medal of these Summer Games before high noon. There will be the clacking of field hockey sticks on steaming artificial turf. Discipline and instinct, sure hands and fast feet, after an eternity of deals and promises.

Last night, the athletes finally marched into Olympic Stadium, an estimated 7,000 competitors from 197 nations, starting with Greece, where it all began, and ending with the host country, and in between the giant teams and the tiny delegations, all marching behind their flags, with more than 83,000 spectators cheering.

Every spectator has favorite countries -- reminders of roots or friends or good meals or vacations. Or past Summer Games.

When I see the interlocking blue and red segments of the South Korean flag, I think of the bright costumes of Chusok, the harvest festival in Seoul that fell during the 1988 Summer Games, which the Koreans intelligently scheduled in late September, after the heat broke.

When I see the red-and-orange flag of Spain, I think of the narrow streets of old Barcelona, sitting in a tapas bar, waiting for the weight lifting competition. Or the phantasmic ceremonies on the top of Montjuich, stemming from the depths of Catalan imagination.

What will we remember from these Atlanta Games?

Atlanta had been building toward this moment for six years, since Billy Payne convinced the International Olympic Committee that the weather was delightful here in July.

All Olympic hosts have something to prove, to justify their selection. Montreal in 1976 wanted to show what a Francophone city could do. Moscow in 1980 wanted to show what Russian-dominated Communism could do. Los Angeles in 1984 wanted to put on a good show at a moderate cost. Seoul in 1988 wanted to show it had arrived. And Barcelona in 1992 wanted to show what Catalan culture could produce.

The hopes and dreams and self-images of Atlanta and the South were laid out for the world by a Hollywood director named Don Mischer, originally from Texas.

The ceremony would emphasize three points -- 100 years of the Olympic movement, the youth of the world, and the important one in these parts -- "Communicating the distinctive 'Southern Spirit' as well as the vibrant multicultural traditions and dynamic contemporary life of Atlanta and the American South."

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The producers utilized some of the great talent from the South -- Gladys Knight popping up at midfield to sign "Georgia On My Mind," Jessye Norman, some of the glorious choirs of the region and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, white clog dancers and black steppers from eight African-American fraternities, the poetry of Zora Neale Huston.

There was also a tribute to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. One could only wonder what the man who was assassinated while lobbying for the welfare of striking sanitation workers in Memphis would have thought of all this pizazz in his hometown, now clogged with "hospitality" tents and corporate logos and limousines.

The ceremony did not go back to the biggest event in the history of the South. ("As you may remember, we had a little fire around here in the 1860's," drily noted Dr. Moses Norman, the former president of the Atlanta Public Schools, a black leader serving on a panel explaining Atlanta to outsiders.)

It was probably just as well that the ceremonies never got into the Civil War or slavery, at the risk of trivializing the memories.

The use of regional symbols is a tricky business. There was a typical Olympic commercial opportunity for 30 pickup trucks of a certain Detroit manufacturer to carry the lights around the stadium during the ceremony, as hundreds of cheerleaders pranced near football goal posts.

That panel of experts had solemnly described to reporters how pickup trucks are used in the South for football tailgate parties and Saturday night get-togethers.

I could see colleagues of mine, Southerners, white and black, rolling their eyes at the stereotype. So many loaded symbols.

But now it is time to wade through the heat and the humidity and the history. Time for athletes. Time for games. Time to get on with this.

A version of this article appears in print on July 20, 1996, on Page 1001031 of the National edition with the headline: Sports of The Times;Long Opening Ceremony Finally Gives the Games to the Athletes. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe